YOU CAN'T RAISE THE ROOF, COUNCIL TELLS THE JESUS PEOPLE

Source : 08/01/1976 Northampton Chronicle and Echo

The Jesus People who outbid South Northamptonshire District Council to buy Bugbrooke Hall, now want to raise the roof.

But the council, the local planning authority, has refused listed building consent.

So the Jesus Fellowship Housing Association has now appealed to the Department of the Environment and a local inquiry will be held by an inspector at Towcester Town Hall on February 3.

The Jesus People applied for planning consent to convert the roof space of the 19th century Bugbrooke Hall into flats and make external alterations.

Their plans involve removing existing chimneys, raising the existing ridge of the roof and the placing of a number of dormer windows.

Listing building consent was refused by the council because it felt that the total effect would be to change fundamentally the proportions and character of the building 'to such an extent that it would be detrimental to its appearance.'

In July 1974 the council turned down an application by the Jesus Fellowship Housing Association for a loan of £60,000. The association wanted the loan to help pay for and partly renovate the Hall which it bought at auction for £67,000.

At the auction the association outbid the council which wanted the Hall to provide sheltered homes for old people.

But the council did approve in principle in September 1974 a routine application by the association for converting the Hall into nine self-contained flats, four flats of three bedrooms, four bed-sitters and one flat with two bedrooms.